Suspense and Sensibility Or, First Impressions Revisited: A Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mystery (15 page)

He rose and pushed in his chair. "Because, Mr. Dashwood, if this utter disregard for propriety continues, I may advise Miss Bennet and her father to rethink your engagement."

As far as Darcy was concerned, he was finished conversing with Harry for the evening. He turned to go.

"Do what thou wilt."

Darcy jerked round, stunned by the utterance. He blinked at Mr. Dashwood. "What did you say?"

Harry sprawled in his seat as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He rolled the stem of his empty glass between his fingers, watching the last few drops of wine swirl in response. "Do what thou wilt."

Their gazes locked. Darcy read in Mr. Dash wood’s eyes a hardness that hadn’t been there before. At least, not before the gathering in Pall Mall. There was no mistaking him now, no need to give him any benefit of the doubt concerning his recent activities because he himself had just removed all doubt. Harry had indeed hosted a meeting of the old Hell-Fire Club. The only question that remained was why.

"Did you learn that motto from your new friends? The ones who called upon you the night before last?"

He laughed hollowly. "I would call them old friends."

"Yes, very old," Darcy agreed. "Old enough to have been Sir Francis’s cohorts – members of his Hell-Fire Club."

"You mean the Monks of Medmenham." A sardonic smile twisted Mr. Dashwood’s lips. "You surprise me, Mr. Darcy. I did not credit you with such penetration. But what does an upstanding gentleman like you know about the Friars of Saint Francis?"

"Enough to know that you flirt with danger if you seek to rekindle those fires." Darcy leaned toward him, resting his hands on the table. "What are you about, Mr. Dashwood? What attraction could that immoral organization hold for you, that you would jeopardize your reputation and honor to experiment with it? Those men you welcomed into your home are honorless scoundrels."

"They are men who know how to live. Not stiff-rumped pansies afraid of their own desires, who never act or speak but in deference to what might cause offense to their equally prudish acquaintances. Cowards who let ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would.’"

Such as himself? The insinuation was obvious.

Recognizing Dashwood’s final words as an allusion to
Macbeth,
Darcy responded in kind. "‘I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.’"

He was not about to sit in his dining room engaging in literary ripostes with an intoxicated fool. But he also was not yet prepared to abandon his attempt to redirect Harry’s misguided steps – if not for Mr. Dashwood’s sake, for Kitty’s. With effort, he reined in his growing anger.

"Mr. Dashwood – Harry – trust me. You do not understand what you are getting yourself into by associating with – "

"Mr. Darcy, it is you who do not understand. You think yourself so wise in the ways of the world. But I have done more and seen more than you ever will; I have tried things you haven’t the courage to imagine. I have not solicited your advice, nor do I need it."

Darcy clenched his fists in frustration. The confidence of one-and-twenty! Would that every young man entering his majority truly possessed the wisdom he thought he did. Unfortunately, it was apparent that only hard experience could teach Harry what he needed to learn. The best Darcy could hope for was to save Kitty from the carriage wreck Mr. Dashwood seemed intent on making of his life.

"I thought you a better man than this, Mr. Dashwood. I thought you a gentleman. But if you persist in clandestine proceedings and unpardonable public behavior, I shall have no choice but to dissuade Miss Bennet from allying her future with yours."

"As I said, do what thou wilt." He set his wineglass on the table upside down. Blood red droplets rolled down to stain the white linen. "I intend to."

Fifteen

"His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than both."

 –
Colonel Brandon to Elinor,

Sense and Sensibility,
Chapter 21

Elizabeth waited in the drawing room with Kitty and Geor-giana for the gentlemen to rejoin them. She expected Darcy and Harry would be closeted either a very short time or a very long time, depending on Mr. Dashwood’s degree of inebriation. If their guest was too drunk for questioning, she doubted Darcy would have much else to say to him tonight.

"Lizzy, Mr. Dashwood seems so altered this evening. I feel as if I hardly know him."

Kitty’s words echoed Elizabeth’s thoughts. She wanted to reassure her sister, but hardly knew herself how to explain Harry’s conduct. Drunkenness was no excuse – he should not have so compromised himself in the first place, let alone called upon his fiancee in such a state. But beyond that, the changes in his manner seemed to exceed the effects of liquor. Elizabeth had not been exposed to many men that far gone into their cups, but even so, she sensed something different in Mr. Dashwood, a more fundamental alteration that had taken hold before the alcohol and that would remain after his head ceased to ache in the morning. She’d perceived it earlier today at Grafton House, and could not yet define it, but it was there.

To Kitty, she merely said, "I am sure his devotion to you is constant. Rest easy in that." But the statement rang hollow in her ears, echoing her own uneasiness.

Mr. Dashwood and Darcy soon entered. One look at Darcy revealed to her that they had argued – she could read it in the tense line of his jaw. What an unpleasant evening this was turning into all around.

"Miss Bennet, I’m afraid I must take my leave."

Mr. Dashwood’s announcement disconcerted Kitty, who glanced uncertainly from him to Darcy and back.

"So soon?"

"Unfortunately so." Harry raised Kitty’s hand to his lips. He then turned it over and kissed the inside of her wrist, lingering over it long enough to make everyone in the room fidget. "Bon-soir, ma cherie."

Kitty turned deep scarlet. "Good – good night, Mr. Dash-wood."

Harry next turned to Elizabeth. "Mrs. Darcy, I thank you for your hospitality." He reached for her hand.

Elizabeth hesitated, sincerely hoping her wrist wouldn’t follow the same path as Kitty’s, but Mr. Dashwood merely grasped her fingers in his palm. Nevertheless, she experienced a sense of revulsion at his touch – a reaction, she presumed, to his unconscionable conduct all evening.

She masked her discomfort, but he regarded her curiously. There passed between them something unspoken. Again, she had the sense that a shift had taken place within him. He was at once more and less the Mr. Dashwood who had entertained them at Norland – more intense in his address, more bold in his actions, more hungry in his pursuit of desires. Yet less disarming, less moderate, less kind. Where before his manner put one at ease, it now set one on edge. It was as if he’d lost his balance, and those around him shared that endless moment of anxiety before it is known whether one will fall.

"Take care of yourself, Mr. Dashwood," she said.

He stepped back, and the moment was broken. His expression became brash once more. "I always do."

Her husband’s displeasure at the exchange was evident, and lingered longer than Mr. Dashwood. After their guest departed, Darcy’s continued glower induced Kitty and Georgiana to seek the refuge of their own chambers for the night.

"You have been in ill temper since your private conversation with Mr. Dashwood," Elizabeth observed when they were alone. "What took place?"

"More of what you witnessed at dinner."

"Mr. Dashwood attempted to seduce you, too? I hope you told him I would object."

His scowl indicated that he was in no humor for humor. "I informed him that there were numerous elements of his behavior to which I object."

"And he said…?"

"Essentially, that the devil may care, but he does not."

"Well!" She sank against the sofa, taken aback by this latest evolution – or, more accurately, devolution – in Mr. Dash-wood’s character. "Was it the wine talking?"

"I wish it were. Then we could hope he would awaken tomorrow embarrassed by this whole evening. But no, I think he knew exactly what he was saying to me, and the effect it would have. He knows everything, you see. At least, more than I do, or so he told me. He
is
one-and-twenty, after all – practically a sage."

"Careful – I am one-and-twenty."

"You
possess common sense. I am in serious doubt as to whether Mr. Dashwood does."

"He had sense enough to fall in love with Kitty."

"And that is the last sensible act he performed. Since we left Norland, he has demonstrated nothing but poor judgment, self-absorption, and flagrant disrespect for the rules and conventions of society. He has brazenly told falsehoods right here in this house. He displays an irresponsible attitude toward money, a childish indulgence in the pursuit of pleasure, and an adolescent obsession with lewd innuendo. He has discarded his friends for the company of aging roues and blackguards – and all of this, on the eve of his marriage to a young woman of good family who cannot possibly countenance his conduct."

Elizabeth could not argue. Darcy had, in fact, articulated many of her own thoughts. "He was so affable when we first met him," she said. "Yet in the span of a fortnight, he has managed to offend nearly all his acquaintance – from his own family to William Middleton to us. At his current pace, the only persons still speaking to him by week’s end will be the elderly gentlemen who gathered at his townhouse, and they, only because they cannot hear half of what he says and fall asleep through the rest." She shivered and crossed her arms in front of her. It had grown chilly in the room. "Did you learn yet who those men were?"

Darcy lifted the fire poker from its stand. "I learned more than I wanted to know."

"Well – -who were they?"

"They were – are – former associates of Sir Francis Dash-wood."

"That distant relation of Harry’s? The man in the painting from Norland?"

"The same."

"You never told me what he was so infamous for – I assumed it was because Kitty was with us in the gallery that day. But we are alone now."

He turned his back to her while he stirred the embers. He took an overly long time about it; she’d never seen someone lavish half so much attention on a blaze.

"Darcy?"

He returned the poker to its place but continued to avoid her gaze as he crossed to the sherry decanter and busied himself in pouring a glass. "Sir Francis Dashwood founded a secret society that came to be known as the Hell-Fire Club."

"If it was a secret, how do people know about it?"

"Many of its suspected members were men of significant political and social standing. You have been in London long enough to know that nothing can remain a secret among the
ton
forever. Eventually tales of the organization and its activities created an enormous scandal."

"Of what were the club’s members accused?"

"Shocking acts of blasphemy and debauchery."

"Such as?"

"Deeds, Elizabeth, that a gentleman does not speak of to a lady." He replaced the stopper, but his hand remained atop the decanter.

"Not even to his wife?"

"Especially
his wife."

He finally met her gaze. She’d expected his expression to be shuttered, for him to withhold himself from her along with the information he so obviously wished to keep back. But she instead found in his eyes a certain sadness that comes from knowing more than one wishes about the depths of human wickedness, and a desire to protect her from that. She let the matter drop.

"So, Mr. Dashwood brought the portrait of Sir Francis back to London with him, and now he’s behaving like a rakehell himself and entertaining the old fellow’s friends," she said. "One wonders what prompted this sudden interest in his family tree."

"It defies reason. Of all his ancestors, Sir Francis is the one Mr. Dashwood should least admire – especially now that he is engaged to a respectable young lady."

"Maybe that is his motive. By demonstrating to his mother what a truly wayward son he could be, he hopes to reconcile her to a marriage with Kitty as the lesser of two evils."

"If so, his method is shortsighted. He risks ruining himself in the process, and his behavior jeopardizes the likelihood of the marriage ever taking place."

"True. And were his plan indeed that of extorting his mother’s approval, one might expect him to take Kitty into his confidence, which he has not. Instead, he left her bewildered by avoiding her for over a se’nnight."

Darcy studied his sherry glass, then set it down untouched. "Perhaps rather than bringing his mother around to his way of thinking, he has come round to hers."

"He regrets the proposal?" She contemplated that scenario. "His ardor has cooled, and now he wishes himself free to follow his mother’s advice and marry more advantageously. So he conducts himself like a cad in hopes Kitty will cry off the engagement." She shook her head. "That might work if he confined his misconduct to Kitty alone. But his public behavior has left him ill qualified to recommend himself to another young lady, particularly one considered a better catch in the marriage market."

"I disagree. His misdemeanors among the
beau monde
amount to little of long-term consequence. So far as the Polite World is concerned, he has cut a few acquaintances on the street, been seen dressed out of fashion, and haunted some seedier gaming hells – nothing of which half the youngbloods in London cannot also stand accused. Even if the manners Mr. Dash-wood exhibited here tonight find display in more public venues, his fortune can more than make up for that in the eyes of the right young lady’s family, particularly if he eventually corrects himself. A month or year from now, when the ton’s interest has fixed upon someone else, his performance will be forgotten altogether or, at worst, remembered as an eccentric phase."

"But what about the gathering he hosted, this ‘Hell-Fire Club? Cannot his new associates damage his reputation?"

"At present, only you and I know about that meeting. Those who attended are unlikely to speak of it."

"Have you any idea what went on there? Do you think they have renewed their former activities? I cannot imagine Mr. Dashwood participating in acts so dreadful that you refuse to describe them to me." At least, not the Mr. Dashwood she thought she knew. But his conduct tonight left her doubting both his character and her own ability to judge it.

"I am afraid that I now believe him capable of anything."

"Can he not be saved?"

"I tried to prevail upon him, or at least gain his confidence, but he is past the point of listening to me." With an air of resignation, he sank into the chair opposite her. "I think we need to advise your father of the situation."

Had it gone that far, that fast? "We must be quite sure. One word from us, and the engagement will be broken." Along with Kitty’s heart. "Perhaps if I talked to Mr. Dashwood myself – "

"Alone?" Darcy’s expression made it clear what he thought of that idea.

"Do you not trust my ability to handle Mr. Dashwood?"

"It is Mr. Dashwood whom I no longer trust."

A Dashwood indeed called at the Darcys’ townhouse the following day, but not Harry. Mrs. John Dashwood arrived as early as was socially acceptable, demanding to see Kitty. Elizabeth, who had been completing needlework in the parlor with Kitty, remained with her sister for moral support despite Fanny’s request for a private interview. Fanny’s displeasure, obvious upon her arrival, was compounded by Elizabeth’s polite unwillingness to abandon Kitty to a cozy tete-a-tete with her future mother-in-law.

Mrs. Dashwood accepted Elizabeth’s invitation to sit, but perched so far on the edge of her seat that Elizabeth mused whether enough chair supported Harry’s mother to keep her from sliding to the floor. Fanny managed, however, to maintain her balance, aided, no doubt, by the ramrod reinforcing her back.

"I have just left Harry in Pall Mall." Apparently, this declaration ought to have furnished the sisters with sufficient explanation for Mrs. Dashwood’s present visit. They, however, required more clarification.

"I hope you left him well?" Kitty asked.

"I should say not!" Fanny scowled at Kitty as if she’d had something to do with it. Kitty melted into the sofa, holding her embroidery frame before her like a shield. Unfortunately, it lacked the power to deflect self-righteous indignation. "Oh, he was in high spirits, to be sure. But not well. Not behaving well at all!"

After the performance they’d witnessed the night before, Elizabeth could only imagine how Harry had treated the mother with whom he was already at odds.
That
was an exchange she wished she could have overheard.

"Since I returned to town, I have heard nothing but what a scapegrace my son is making of himself. I will not have him dragging the Dashwood name through the gutters of St. James’s, to become the latest
on-dit
at Almack’s. And I told him so. His aunt Lucy was there when I arrived, telling him the same thing."

How delighted Mr. Dashwood must have been, to have two harridans descend upon him in the early hours to continue Darcy’s conduct lecture where it had left off the night before.

That Lucy had taken it upon herself to correct Harry surprised Elizabeth, as she presumed Mrs. Ferrars was still trying to maneuver her daughter into his affections, but perhaps hope that Regina would one day share the Dashwood name had motivated her desire to preserve it.

"The whole house was at sixes and sevens!" Fanny continued, apparently neither requiring nor desiring another participant in the conversation. "Workmen coming in to dig some sort of larder under the cellar! They continually interrupted us. You would think, from the amount of instruction Harry was obliged to offer, that he had just hired them this morning to start the project! Then two footmen brought a portrait of that dreadful Sir Francis down from Harry’s chamber and on his orders started hanging it immediately – while we were sitting there conversing. The place was such a jumble I could scarcely hold his attention!"